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Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa & other major modern pop acts: backing tracks and miming

editor

editor

hiraethified
Pretty shocking stuff this. I knew that it was common for major acts to use backing tracks, but I wasn't expecting acts like Taylor Swift to mime quite so much.



 
Even if Taytay were singing live, none of the fans would notice as they're all screaming along with the song anyway. I guess it's meant to be more of a participation event than a music performance. I am indeed "old school" in that I like musicians who are playing music.
 
I guess the important thing is... Do they people that pay for tickets care? Or do they spend the entire concert screaming/singing themselves it wouldn't matter if the singer was mining or not. Do they enjoy their experience? I think they like it :)

How much of ticket sale costs go to the artist and how badly are tickets prices inflated by ticket sellers and middlemen?
 
If I was singing and dancing for 3.5 hours I'm pretty sure I'd need some help at some point - if only to have a break! :D. If it's done seamlessly (and Taylor Swift does it so) then who cares? (well, obviously someone cares, but I think most people understand why it's done)
 
Steel Icarus said:
Wait til you hear about Abba's show. (That shit loads of people have been to and enjoyed.)
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At least they started out as real life human beings, and the avatars play with a live human band.

Hatsune Miku just played Wembley Arena and the only human component is the men who developed and programmed her.
 
I have no doubt that Taylor at times has help with vocals but she doesn’t mime large parts of the show.

I’ve seen the tour twice, watched the film endless times and watched hours of grainy live streams over the past 18 months and there’s too many times where she’s had to stop, call for medical help, shout at security, swallowed a bug etc for her to be full stop miming. It just wouldn’t be possible.

There’s also plenty of times where she hits a note differently or her voice sounds different.

I don’t mind that she has some help, she’s doing a 3 1/2 show, dancing constantly and working her arse off.
 
Looby said:
there’s too many times where she’s had to stop, call for medical help, shout at security, swallowed a bug etc for her to be full stop miming. It just wouldn’t be possible.
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from my understanding the way it works is timecode....so when a track starts someones job is to press GO at the beginning of a track...this gives the drummer a click track to play to, it triggers other things to happen (backing vocals very common) at precise moments, and the miming kicks in then. when a track is finished there is the possibility to stop, chat, eat bugs etc, until the next time someone presses GO.

Presumably if she stops mid track the whole track stops? and they can just start again?
 
ska invita said:
from my understanding the way it works is timecode....so when a track starts someones job is to press GO at the beginning of a track...this gives the drummer a click track to play to, it triggers other things to happen (backing vocals very common) at precise moments, and the miming kicks in then. when a track is finished there is the possibility to stop, chat, eat bugs etc, until the next time someone presses GO.

Presumably if she stops mid track the whole track stops? and they can just start again?
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But if something unexpected happens, would that work? One night security were hassling someone in the crowd so she was shouting ‘stop, she wasn’t doing anything’ etc. Wouldn't there be a noticeable delay where the track kept going?
 
To be honest I think this guy on the OP is just another one riding the Taylor Swift wave, for clicks, just like every other influencer/content maker seems to be doing. My Insta feed is filled with musicians and writers analysing TS songs from every possible angle. Then there's the ones with men singing her songs in rock style, punk style, whatever style. It's bonkers. Anything with a photo of TS gets clicks even if it has barely anything to do with her.

This one is actually good:
 
editor said:
Pretty shocking stuff this. I knew that it was common for major acts to use backing tracks, but I wasn't expecting acts like Taylor Swift to mime quite so much.



Click to expand...

I sometimes watch this guy’s videos. They’re all basically the same, but he performs a valuable service.

In the case of “live” “performance” the questions raised are what is live and what is performance? What does the ticket buyer value and what are they expecting?

More of interest to me, since I’m not in the market for Taylor Swift tickets, is how much pitch correcting and auto tune are becoming (have become) industry standard in recording.

There’s a lot wrong with that: not just unnatural expectations of the human voice and uncanny valley outcomes, but an actual misunderstanding of how pitch works. Voices don’t reach a note and stay there for the full note. Skilled singers do not match their notes to a grid centred on 440hz. Guitars, pianos and other instruments are not tuned that way all through their register, and so a vocalist will compensate for those instruments at different registers.

Pinning the vocal to a grid automatically will put the vocal out of tune with the piano, for example, in the higher or lower octaves. Piano are tuned slightly flat the higher you go and slightly sharp the lower you go, because that sounds best to the human ear. Vocals mechanistically pinned to a 440 grid will therefore not sound right in those octaves in comparison with the piano. Pitch “correction” is therefore actually not correct.

Fil of the video channel above tells a story of one artist who asked the producer not to pitch correct them, and the producer agreeing, only to find that later in the process an engineer had done it anyway, just because they saw it as part of their job and just “what is done”. This means records are potentially going out heavily pitch corrected even against the wishes of the artist and producer.
 
girasol said:
To be honest I think this guy on the OP is just another one riding the Taylor Swift wave, for clicks, just like every other influencer/content maker seems to be doing.
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Nah, that's not him at all. He's been doing this for years and has produced loads of excellent, informative videos.

And he did so many Swift videos because he had so much kickback from the first one with people accusing him of making it up.
 
Callie said:
I guess the important thing is... Do they people that pay for tickets care? Or do they spend the entire concert screaming/singing themselves it wouldn't matter if the singer was mining or not. Do they enjoy their experience? I think they like it :)

How much of ticket sale costs go to the artist and how badly are tickets prices inflated by ticket sellers and middlemen?
Click to expand...
Yeah, I know people are going for the big show, and by all metrics, Taylor Swift's 3 hour special is just about the most amazing whizz-bang spectacle you can see right now.

And I get why she might mime some of the songs, but was surprised to learn that almost everything is mimed, and the backing is all pre-recorded with the band just being seen to do stuff on top.
 
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